What's Next?
You may feel unsettled, you may be unsure about the direction that your life or business is going in, you may feel overwhelmed by what you have got on or you may want to make changes in your personal or business life.
This is usually as a result of taking a holiday or break during the summer and having the time to think about what is actually happening in your life, as well as what you want in the future. So if you are feeling like this, what can you do? Here are some suggestions that you may want to try:
What do you really want?
-One way of deciding what it is that you really want is to think about waking up one morning and everything is as you want it to be. What would you be doing, saying, feeling, what would other people be saying to you and what would be happening in your life?
-Another way is to write down everything that you would like to do, you want to be and you would like to have.
-You can also think about sitting in your rocking chair when you are old and looking back on your life. What would you regret not doing in your life?
-Look at each main area of your business and/or your personal life and rate them out of 10. This will help you sort out which areas you would like to change, if any.
What is the most important area to work on?
-You may already know what you want to achieve or you may have tried one of the suggestions above to sort out what it is you want. However, where are you going to start?
-Think through what you want to achieve and prioritise what is most important for you to work on first.
-You may find that some things get dropped off your list and you narrow down to a smaller number of things that you really want. You may also find that what you want to achieve is different than what you first thought.
What do you need to do to get there?
-What actions do you need to take to achieve what you want to achieve? If you have decided to work on a particular area of your personal or business life, look at what you need to do to achieve what you want.
-You can do this by brainstorming all the different things that you could do.
-You can think about what actions you need to take to move you from where you are now to where you want to be.
-Consider what will need to be different from now and what do you need to
change?
-You could also ask yourself questions to help you to generate other ideas, such as what would you do if you had lots of money, what would you do if you had no commitments, what would you tell your friends to do, what would they tell you to do etc.
-You should now have a list of actions that you could take to achieve what you want to achieve.
What are you actually going to do?
-Narrow down what you are actually going to do and by when. Here you need to decide on which actions from those you have thought of above you actually want to take.
-Prioritise these actions and set deadlines for each one.
Just do it.
-If you really know what you want and you know what you need to do to get there, you then need to take the actions you have decided on.
-However lots of things can get in the way, so you will need to keep reviewing your list and re-prioritising as things change.
-If you are not taking action you may find that you don't really want what you thought you did.
What help can you get?
-To help you with the above, you may want to discuss what you want to do and your action plan with your family, friends or business colleagues so they can support and motivate you.
-You may want to do some reading or attend a training course.
-You may choose to use a business advisor or consultant.
-You could use the services of a coach or business mentor for help with the above and for support and motivation.
Author: Liz Makin
Published: September 2007
Makin It Happen has a range of personal development online courses to purchase, created by Liz Makin, including anxiety management, communication, resilience, soft skills, stress management, time management and coaching. Liz Makin also provides personalised business coaching, business mentoring and stress management services to business owners, directors, managers and professionals.
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